Course Information

Welcome to Computer Science 194-23: The Art and Science of Digital
Photography, offered Spring 2013 by the EECS department at UC Berkeley.

Description

This course will explore the artistic aspects, scientific foundations, and techniques of digital photography with the goals of enabling students to expand their knowledge of photography as an art form, to develop a deeper and broader understanding of the scientific basis of photography, and to improve their photographic technique. Although the primary focus is on digital photography, most concepts apply to photography in general and are also directly applicable to film photography. With an improved understanding of the limitations compromises behind digital photography, students will be better prepared for unexpected and dynamic photographic situations. Topics include quality of light, exposure control, depth of field, aesthetics, composition and patterns, perspective, color science, the human visual system, spatial and color perception, digital versus chemical processing, exposure, metering, digital sensors, optics, analogies to biological systems, color filter arrays, file formats, sensor linearity, color spaces and profiles, optical and computational image artifacts. Through lectures, hands-on assignments, and critiques, students will expand their understanding of digital photography while exploring their creativity to broaden the possibilities and improve the quality of their photographs.

If possible, students in this course should use a camera that has either interchangeable lenses of different focal lengths or a zoom lens, that is capable of capturing files in a RAW format, and that has a fully manual mode which enables manual setting of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO as well for focus.

Grading Criteria (with approximate weightings)

Here is the percentage break-down of what will be covered in this
course. More details will posted as the class gets underway.
As always, we may make adjustments to this scale if necessary.

The Adobe Photoshop CS6 Book for Digital Photographers
Scott Kelby
Peachpit Press. Part of the Voices That Matter series (2013)
ISBN-13: 978-0-321-82374-8

Projects

Four projects and a capstone project based on creating photographs will
be assigned. Each project is due by 11:59 PM on the Friday
listed and, unless otherwise noted, each will be released two lectures
prior to its due date.

Capstone Project

A larger capstone project will be due at the end of the semester in
addition to the four projects above. The project requires a proposal
to be submitted after the specifications are released, and you should
be sure to get approval on your proposal before working on the project.
The capstone project will not be accepted if a proposal for it is not
approved.

Though every assignment is normally due at 11:59 PM on its due
date, the Capstone project itself is due at 12:00 PM (noon)!

Note: all listed dates subject to change.

Problem Sets

Four problem sets comprising theory-based questions will be assigned
during the semester. Each problem set is due at 11:59 PM on the
Friday listed and, unless otherwise noted, each will be released two
lectures prior to its due date.

Critiques

This course includes in-class critiques. Students are expected to
create three photographs for possible critique most weeks throughout the
semester, with one image submitted on the Wednesday, Friday, and
Sunday preceding that week's scheduled lecture. Submissions are due at
11:59 PM for each day.

Photos for the crit will be posted to the class blog at http://cs194-23.tumblr.com. The
blog is password protected. The password was given out during the
first lecture, but can be obtained from a member of the staff or
a fellow student. Please, do not share this password online.
Photos for the crit must be tagged with the word
"crit"
in the tags section for each post. Additionally, one photo per week
should be tagged with
"bestshot"
indicating it is your favorite, or the one that
you would like to get the most feedback on. (It is perfectly
acceptable to apply this tag to a photo at the end of the week. On
Sunday, for instance, you may decide to tag your Wednesday
submission with "bestshot".) In addition, for every
photo you submit, you must also fill out this form to be able to receive
credit for your work.

The photos which you take for the crit should meet the following
criteria: